The Controlled
Vocabulary Survey regarding the
Preservation of Photo Metadata by Social Media Websites

OverviewDo the social media
websites or other image sharing services you use preserve your embedded
photo metadata
after upload? The answer to that question isn't clear, so we have
been conducting an on-going survey of various services to find out.

Digital images, saved in the JPEG format support the embedding
of photo
metadata, and most social media sites support the
uploading of JPEG images. However, many of these social media services
do not preserve this information that you have taken the time to
embed in your image files. In some instances this information is
removed on
upload; in other cases, it may preserved in the original uploaded
file, but any images derived from the original
may no longer retain that same
information. In other instances the images may be stored in the Flash
format, which makes it difficult to download files or view metadata,
but also means that viewers will not be able to see those images
if they are using mobile devices such as all iPods, iPhones, and
iPads, as well as Blackberries, etc.

Anyone downloading an image of yours for
reference may not know where that image came from or who to contact,
without at least some basic information remaining stored within the image
file. Based on preliminary
survey data, the amount and type of
embedded photo metadata preserved in JPEG images online varies.
Much seems to depends on the type of server
side
software they use and the type of image processing they are
performing when resizing, or creating thumbnails. Metadata preservation
can even be an issue
with those using Wordpress and other blogging or Content
Management Systems.

Some services may claim they remove this information to decrease download
time for those viewing the images. Indeed, some social
media services automatically resize your uploaded images to a smaller
size, as their primary concern is to have your images take up less disk
space. Since most do not charge any membership fees, and the service
is essentially free, many users don't complain, even if they are aware.
There may be things you are giving the service that you aren't aware
of, so be sure to check the terms
and conditions — like those for facebook and other services —
if you want to retain the rights to your work.

This downsizing may make
sense for the service, but not for users of their service that
are
interested
in protecting their intellectual property. While
your images may
take up
fractionally less space
on their servers by intentionally
removing the embedded photo metadata and/or ICC profile, the space
savings is not justifiable if the pixel dimensions remain the same.

The real and present danger is that by having your attribution
information removed (such as the creator/author field which indicates
who took the photograph, or the
copyright notice field, or provider), the service
is creating potential "orphan
works" of your property.

As one example, when Facebook made changes to their privacy settings
back in December of 2009, many users likely opted for the recommended
settings — without
taking the time to really understand the implications. Those
users may now be surprised to find that they inadvertently gave Facebook
the right to publicize their private information including status
updates, shared links, and their photos.Given that the preliminary
survey results show that the Facebook service strips out all embedded
metadata on upload, this means those
users
have given up the opportunity to monetize their
intellectual property,, and — if
some form of "orphan works" legislation should pass — potentially
even from those that may download the images and use them later.

In other instances the service may only
preserve the older "legacy" form
of IPTC metadata, and thus detailed contact information will be missing
in any file that may be downloaded for later reference.

Objective
The objective of this survey is two fold.

1). Determine
whether or not various services used to share images are preserving
the embedded
metadata in digital images (primarily JPEGs) after they are uploaded
or resized.

2). Make those results available to others (results
of
the survey in progress can be viewed in the Photo
Metadata Use Survey of Social Media Websites) so that image creators
can choose services that properly preserve
photo metadata, and/or encourage these service providers to revisit
their metadata preservation policies, and/or image processing routines.

To collect data for
the survey we are using the Online Exif Metadata Viewer - http://regex.info/exif.cgi -
made available by Jeffrey Friedl. If you are not familiar with that
tool, check out the instructions given later on this page. This tool
can be used
to discover whether the image has been resized by the service. In
addition we can determine whether or not photo metadata is being preserved,
and if so, can
note which specific metadata fields are being stored, as well which
metadata schema format is preserved (IPTC, XMP, Exif). (Note that
GIF and PNG file formats, as well as FLASH based presentations of digital
images
do not support
photo metadata and thus can not be tested as part of this survey).

To Participate:

A. Download
Testbed ImageRight click (command click on Mac) to download the cv-testbed_social-media.jpg and
then upload this to the service you are using and collect some information
for the survey so we can all benefit.

This testbed image has both the legacy IPTC and XMP fields filled out using
the name of the field as it appears in the IPTC Core tab of Photoshop
CS4, as the fields in the Description and Origin
tabs. Click on the link at the end of this sentence to see the the embedded
photo metadata for the test
bed image as it appears in the online metadata viewing tool that is
being used to view the metadata for the survey.

Feel free to test your own images in addition to the testbed image. However,
if you do, we do ask that you please indicate which application you used
to prepare the image. Also note in
the comments in the last question,
if you have
not filled out all the metadata fields in the image you used for testing.
Without knowing which fields were embedded in the image,
it will not be possible to know whether or not the reason a field is
not appearing is because it was not preserved, or because it was never
there to begin with.

B. Upload
Testbed Image
Follow the steps you would normally to upload an image to the social
media website or service you wish to test. If there are several methods,
you might want to perform several tests, and note the different method
of upload used in the survey, (Web upload, Email, FTP, etc.).

C.
Test Image for Metadata
Use Jeffrey Friedl's
Online Metadata Viewer to check the uploaded image
to see if the metadata survived the upload process. If there are no sections
in the lower part of the results page that start with IPTC, XMP, or Exif,
then check the NONE box. Otherwise, note which fields are preserved.
Note
that the
field
names may be a little different than what you are used to, but they are
listed alphabetically to be the same as those on the results page,
if all are present. If you want to see what an ideal results page should
look like, see the one for the CV-testbed
image that is uploaded on this website. Compare this to the CV-testbed-sfw image.
This image was saved using the Photoshop "Save for Web and Devices" in
CS4, using the Metdata setting "All" and only contains
XMP information.

If you see the field label name under a section, that indicates
the presence of that field in the image. Don't worry if the value next
to that field label is the same or not, those just happened to be the
name of the field label in the IPTC Core, Description, or Origin tabs
as seen in the File Info dialog of Photoshop.

Note that the only portion of the Basic Image Info, (at
the top of the results page) that will be used is the information in
the File: section,
and this is only to note the height and width of the image that is being
viewed online. The rest of the data corresponds to the fields that appear
under the IPTC, XMP, and Exif sections.

Thank you for participating. Please tell your friends and colleagues and
encourage them to participate.

The folks over
at Pro-Imaging have
been following the efforts of this survey and are providing a test/notification
image that can be used when submitting
digital images to photo contests. If you suspect that the system may
be removing metadata, the visible text on the file may help catch their
attention.

Notes for
Using Jeffrey Friedl’s "Online
Metadata Viewer" Tool
You can
access Jeffrey Friedl’s "Online Metadata Viewer" for
reviewing the metadata in the image after uploading the testbed image
(or your own) to the social media, or image service you are testing.
You can access this resource at the following website from any browser.http://regex.info/exif.cgi

Friedl’s metadata viewer makes use of Phil Harvey's Image::ExifTool
library to accomplish this "meta magic." While you can
enter a URL for an image on the web, or use this application to read
metadata from an image on
your local
hard drive, it's real power comes from the ability to install this as
a button on your tool
bar in Firefox or Safari. Sorry, but he says that this toolbar widget
doesn't yet work with Microsoft Internet Explorer.
His instructions
on how to add this item to your tool bar (in Firefox, Safari, or other
Gecko based browsers) are on the first link referenced above, they are
repeated here for convenience along
with
a
few tips.

Installation Instructions:
His directions simply state: "Drag this button to your button bar,
then while on a page displaying an image, just click the button in the
bar to view the image's Exif data"

First off, let me make it clear that
this tool reads more than Exif. It also reads XMP, IPTC, and Exif as
well as a lot of other metadata tags (most of which we will ignore for
this survey).

Make your Toolbar Visible:
Unfortunately, not everyone has their Bookmark Toolbars active, so first,
make sure your toolbar is visible:

In Firefox, make sure that your "Bookmarks toolbar" is
visible. If it isn't, go to the View menu, choose, Toolbars,
and then Bookmarks
Toolbar (if it is already checked then it's visible).

In Safari, check to make sure that there is a check mark next to the "Bookmarks
Toolbar" entry
in the View Menu.

Drag Exif tool to Toolbar:
From the http://regex.info/exif.cgi URL,
drag the item labeled "Exif" in
blue text from the green box in the upper right pink box of that page
to your toolbar (with Safari you will see a green "+" (plus sign)
when you are over the bookmarks toolbar). This will add a javascript
item to your toolbar that will allow you to automatically load the URL
of an image into the metadata viewer.

You may be given the opportunity to change the name of the bookmark, however
I would recommend simply leaving it as Exif. as that is
short and doesn't take up much space on your toolbar.

Javacript Must Be Enabled
Please also note that since this tool uses Javascript,
that you must have your browser set to allow the use of this scripting
language. The
default for most current browsers is to have Javascript enabled, but
if you have
modified the defaults you will need to enable Javascript within your
browser.

Tips & Hints
Here are a few notes that I've assembled, showing you how you can use
this tool to view the metadata (or lack thereof) from the various social
media websites. While the following may seem complicated, once you’ve
done this a few times, you ’ll
be surprised how quick & easy this process can be.

Viewing Metadata
for Previews
If the image is the only one on the page, try clicking the Exif Javascript
link and see if you get a new page with the Basic Image
Info title
showing. If you get an error, or are viewing an image other than the
one you want, try the following:

Right click (or command click if using a one button mouse on a Mac),
and choose View Image (in Firefox), or Show Image in Safari.

When you click the Exif Javascript link in your toolbar.
A new page will open, with a headline at top in bold stating Basic
Image Info along
with an enlarged view of the thumbnail. Confirm that this is the image
you want to test before recording the info.

If the preview opens in a separate pop-up window which obscures your main
window and no button bar is visible, you can do the following:

Firefox 2 (Windows): Cursor over thumbnail, then right-click mouse and
choose, Copy Image Location from the menu that pops up.

Firefox 2 (Mac): Cursor over thumbnail, then control-click mouse and choose,
Copy Image Location from the menu that pops up.

Then open Jeffrey Friedl's Online Metadata viewer in another browser window
and paste that URL into the Image URL field at the top
of the page.

Viewing Metadata
for Thumbnails
Since thumbnails typically appear as one of
many on a page, in order to view the metadata for a single thumbnail,
you will need to first get that
image on a page by itself. The simplest way to do this varies by browser:

Firefox 2 (Windows): Cursor over thumbnail, then right-click mouse and
choose, View Image from the menu that pops up.

Firefox 2 (Mac): Cursor over thumbnail, then control-click mouse and choose,
View Image from the menu that pops up.

Safari 3 (Mac): Cursor over thumbnail, then control-click mouse and choose,
Open Image In New Window or Open Image in New Tab from
the menu that pops up.

Move to the page or tab where only the thumbnail is showing, and when you
click the Exif Javascript link in your toolbar a new page
will open, with a headline at top in bold stating Basic Image
Info along with an enlarged view of the thumbnail.

For the survey
you will be asked to note specific information from specific parts
of this page. The only portion of the Basic Image Info,
that will be used is the information in the File: section,
and this is only to note the height and width of the image that is being
viewed online.